Alison Specht (BScHons, PhD UQ) is an environmental scientist with broad expertise in research, teaching, and community engagement. After some years as a tutor and research officer at the University of Queensland, she was a research and teaching academic at Southern Cross University in northern New South Wales for more than twenty years. She has published many reports, scientific papers and book chapters on the biodiversity, function and monitoring ofecosystems,particularly groundwater-dependent, rainforest andcoastal communities. She is the co-author of two books on Australian vegetation. Her major interests are the links between site quality, productivity and biodiversity, and enhancing engagement between science, policy and management to improve environmental outcomes.

From 2009 to 2014 she was the director of the Australian Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (www.aceas.org.au), a facility of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (www.tern.org.au), based at the University of Queensland. She has been a member of the DataONE (www.dataone.org) Usability and Assessment Working Group since its inception in 2010, and has interests and expertise in data management and the preservation of archival data. She initiated the formation of the International Synthesis Consortium (www.synthesis-consortium.org), whose mission is to increase the effectiveness and recognition of the value of synthesis centres. On 1 September 2015 she took up the position of Director of the CEntre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (CESAB) of the FRB.

Claire Salomon holds degrees in public and international law, and in business law. She received her Master's degree in new technology law. She started her career as a legal advisor at the French Research Institute for the Development. She then became responsible for the Pacific-Asia section of the International Relations Direction of the Institute. Through her international projects, she acquired experience in scientific research stakes, networks and professional diversity, and their demands. She also got to appreciate the subtleties of international collaborations. In 2010, Claire Salomon joined the FRB as project manager to start up the CESAB. She is currently the Associate Director of the CESAB. Claire Salomon also helps in the coordination of the biodiversity study group of AllEnvi, an alliance for the environment.

Magali Grana studied at the Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme (MMSH) in Aix-en-Provence and received a Master's degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology as well as a Master's in Sciences and Technics of the Mediterranean cultural heritage. She started her carreer as a cultural mediator at the Museum of African, Oceanian, and American Indian Museum in Marseille, and at the Old Marseille Museum. For about six years she has acquired administrative experience as an administrative and logistic assistant in a non-profit organisation for social actions in Marseille. She joined CESAB's team in October 2011. Her main tasks here are to: 1) welcome the researchers during their work sessions at CESAB and coordinate the logistics associated with their visits, 2) perform the follow-up of CESAB's call for research proposals, and 3) manage the daily operation of the centre.